TumbleDweeeb

THE POSSUM BRANCH SERIES
Episode 1: PILOT: The Squirrel Siege
By: Emmitt Owens (Index #12012025)

   They don’t train you in radio school for nights like these. Mostly because nobody goes to radio school anymore. You just show up, prove you can avoid dead air, and pray someone remembers to pay you.
   I’m broadcasting from a shed bolted onto a failing AM tower at the end of Slaughter Pen Road, where the streetlights quit somewhere around the last tax dollar. My name’s Possum—not the name my mama gave me, but the one this town insisted on once they saw I do my best work in the dark. It’s 1:07 AM. The humidity’s at 98%, my morale’s at 24%, and my sanity’s pending review.
   My audience consists of warehouse zombies, roadside preachers, truckers fueled by amphetamines, and insomniacs arguing with their ceiling fans. I lean into the mic, my voice dropping into that late-night register. “This is WDAR 96.6, Dead Air Radio. Welcome to Possum’s Branch, where time flows like spilled moonshine and all clocks are optional.”
   Line One flickers like a wounded firefly. Oh Lord.
     I press the button. “WDAR, you’re on the Branch.”
   There’s a hiss, a distant bell, someone breathing hard. Then a voice comes through with rhythm and panic:
     “Listen close, I’m in a bind,
squirrels attacked… the furry kind!
They want my pickles, want my brine,
rolled up on me ’round suppertime!
Got bushy tails and sandwich dreams,
nothing here is what it seems!”
   I stare at the console. The caller doesn’t introduce himself. Just rhymes. But there’s a beat to it, like he’s freestyling his breakdown.
     “Friend,” I say slowly, “squirrels don’t typically eat pickles.”
   “Man, they’ll eat what they can steal,
I’m talking ’bout a sandwich deal!
These bushy bandits form a crew,
they want my cart, my pickles too!
It’s real, I swear, it’s really real—
why would I lie about this ordeal?”
     He’s spiraling, but there’s something almost musical about it. I flip over a sticky note and write: “Caller: Rhymes Guy. Status: Unknown.”
   “Who exactly is chasing you?”
     I hear wheels creaking, glass jars jingling. His voice drops into a rapid-fire rhythm:
   “Squirrels rolling deep in packs of three,
circling my cart like I’m a tree!
They got coordination, got a plan,
I’m just a pickle-pushing man!
My cart is chrome, my heart is true,
but these fuzzy thugs know what to do!”
   “What’s your name?”
     There’s a pause, then he delivers it like a punchline: “Name’s Pete, but on these streets, I’m Pickle Player—can’t be beat. Got that brine behavior, dill and sweet!”
   Despite everything, I grin. “Pickle Player. Alright. You sell pickles from what, a truck?”
     “Nah man, a cart—my mobile art,
gleaming chrome right from the start!
I push my stock through rain and heat,
a pickle beacon, can’t be beat!
Umbrella striped in green and white,
a pickle tower in the night!”
   A traveling pickle vendor. Buzzard Roost has bowling alley meth deals and church bake-sale turf wars. Weird ain’t new. But this? This has style.
     “Describe these squirrels.”
   “Two feet tall, I’m telling you…
furry soldiers through and through!
Beady eyes that watch and wait,
calculating, planning fate!
They sniff around my sandwich stash,
planning some kind of dash!”
     Two feet tall. I glance at my coffee.
   Behind him I hear rustling, then: “Back away, you furry crew! These pickles aren’t meant for you!”
     “Called, where are you calling from?”
   “Somewhere between the church and you,
lost in brine, don’t know what to do!
My GPS went dark an hour back—
I think they planned this whole attack!
I’m rolling blind through Buzzard streets,
while squirrel commandos plot and meet!”
     His breathing goes choppy. That bell on his cart keeps ringing. And here’s the thing about good radio—you need a hook. This guy’s got rhythm, panic, and commitment.
   That’s gold.
     I lean forward. “Buzzard Roost, we’ve got ourselves a Pickle Player problem tonight.”
   He gasps. “You gave my crisis a name! Put my pickle pain on fame! This is wild, this is way too crazy mane!”
     “What do you want listeners to do?”
   Softer now, almost vulnerable: “Buy my pickles, save my dream. Support your local brine-time team. I’m out here hustling every night, just trying to keep my business right.”
     Marketing through poetry. I respect it.
   Line Two lights up. I press it. “WDAR. Who’s this?”
     “Bunjee McBride… the bread truck guy.” His voice is cautious. “I saw him near the high school an hour ago. Yelling at the trees.”
   “Who? This pickle guy?” I asked.
     Pickle Player’s voice cuts in: “Bread Boy! My brother in carbs! Together we fight these fuzzy barbs!”
   Bunjee whispers into the line, “Possum, he was throwing pickle spears at the ground yelling about ‘carb wars.’”
     “That was strategy, don’t you see? Marking territory, claiming my G! I’m protecting turf, protecting pride, keeping my pickle business alive!”
   I’m about to cut them both off when Line Three pulses.
     “Ms. Speegle here, lunch lady at Buzzard Roost High for thirty-seven years.” Her voice carries authority. “I seen that boy last spring behind the cafeteria. There were squirrels. Big ones. He fought them off with pickle jars like some kind of deli warrior. I’m just saying—maybe he ain’t wrong.”
   Pickle Player’s voice goes reverent: “Ms. Speegle sees the truth at last! She knows my mission, knows my past! A witness to the squirrel attack—somebody finally’s got my back!”
     I cut all three lines. The studio settles into quiet.
   “Okay, Buzzard Roost. We have a situation. Pickle vendor. Possible squirrel conflict. Somebody check on him.”
     The phone rings again. I answer. “This better be good.”
   Pickle Player whispers, “Possum… they’re at the cart.”
     “The squirrels?”
   “They’re chewing on my pickle flag.”
     “You have a pickle flag?”
   “Every business needs a brand! A flag declares where you stand!”
     And that’s when it hits me. This is radio. This is the weird magic that happens at 1 AM when the world gets loose and strange.
   “Pickle Player,” I declare, “welcome to WDAR’s newest segment. We’re going to call this Crunch Time.”
     “Crunch Time?!” His voice lifts with hope. “That’s tight, that’s right, that’s pure delight! A segment for my pickle plight!”
   “You got squirrels on you now?”
     “They’re moving in formation, closing space…
I can see every fuzzy face!
They’re organized, they’re tactical,
this situation’s getting radical!”
   I hear pop-pops through the line.
     “They’re popping lids! They’re in my stash! This whole thing’s going down so fast! If I fall here in the street, tell Buzzard Roost—I kept it sweet! Stayed true to brine, stayed true to me, a pickle man who dared to dream!”
   The line goes dead.
     Just like that. Dead air.
   I sit there, staring at the phone. Then I look outside. Far down Slaughter Pen Road, between the trees, there’s a faint green glow. Pulsing. And underneath it, barely audible, the chime of a bell.
     “Ding… dill… ding… a… ling…”
   I lean closer to the glass. The glow pulses once more—something chrome, something moving. Then it vanishes. The bell goes silent.
     I sit back slowly and click the mic on.
   “Buzzard Roost, there’s a man out there tonight defending his dream from what he believes is a squirrel militia. And you know what? I respect that. Takes courage to fight for something, even if that something is a chrome cart full of pickles and that fight is against what might be imaginary rodents.”
     I glance at the window. Still dark.
   “If you see a chrome cart with a striped umbrella, don’t panic. Just buy a pickle. Support local business. And don’t feed the squirrels—apparently they’re getting organized.”
     I cue up a song. As the guitar bleeds through the speakers, I lean back and stare at the ceiling.
   “This is Possum, reminding the midnight people: we ain’t crazy. We’re just awake when the sane folks are sleeping. And sometimes in that space between night and morning, the line between real and unreal gets blurry. That’s what we’re here for.”
     Outside, Buzzard Roost sleeps on, unaware that somewhere in its darkness, a man named Pete is fighting the good fight with nothing but pickles and rhythm.
   Either way, it made for damn good radio.
     WDAR 96.6—Dead Air Radio.
   Crunch Time will return…